Updates on netCDF releases and plans

Hi,
In the interest of keeping the community of netCDF users informed
about netCDF release status and plans, both short-term and long-term,
here are four updates:
1. Version 3.6.2 coming soon: Although we recently released netCDF
version 3.6.1, we will soon be releasing version 3.6.2, probably in
the next week. If you haven't already installed 3.6.1, you could
save some effort by waiting to install 3.6.2 instead. It improves
the ease of building from source on some platforms, fixes a rare
bug that triggers an assertion violation, fixes another minor but
long-standing problem resulting in some files being slightly longer
than necessary (up to 3 bytes!), and adds a new tutorial.
2. C++ interface improvements: Recently there have been several good
suggestions for improving the netCDF C++ interface, including use
of a namespace, making some methods virtual, and adding convenience
methods. We plan to eventually provide a new netCDF C++ interface
that uses namespaces, exceptions, and templates, but we will also
continue to support the current interface for backward
compatibility. We appreciate suggestions for improving the C++
interface from users of that interface. Feel free to email them to
me and we'll add practical suggestions to a netCDF-4 C++ interface
requirements web page.
A student will be working with us this summer on a few of the
planned improvements to the C++ interface.
3. NetCDF-4 delayed: An alpha-test release of netCDF-4 is available
for developers, but should be used only in testing. The
netCDF-4-alpha version uses workarounds that will not be required
when HDF5 1.8 is released, and we don't want to continue to support
those workarounds. A release of HDF5 version 1.8 is now
tentatively scheduled for October 2006, assuming there are no
unanticipated problems. In the meantime, thanks for your patience
and help in providing feedback on earlier test releases.
For more details on netCDF-4, a paper is available in PDF or Word
form:
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/papers/2006-ams.pdfhttp://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/papers/2006-ams.doc
and a 15-minute recorded presentation given in January (complete
with distracting and jerky mouse movements :-), is available here:
http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_104931.htm
4. New address for netCDF support questions: Rather than the
netcdfgroup mailing list, please begin sending netCDF support
questions not of general interest to
"support-netcdf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" instead of
"support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". The latter address will still work,
but involves a manual step to reroute the question to someone who
can answer it. We have recently moved to a new support system, for
details, see:
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/newsletter/2006feb/06febel.html#Article3
--Russ
_____________________________________________________________________
Russ Rew UCAR Unidata Program
russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.unidata.ucar.edu
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